UN funding since September to continue helping Palestinian refugees

The United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned on Tuesday in Beirut that the organization would no longer have the funds to maintain the level of assistance to the Palestinian community from September unless it receives additional funding.

“I am constantly warning Member States and Partners that the likelihood that an agency like ours will not be able to provide services this fall is likely or very likely unless we receive additional resources,” Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s commissioner general, warned in press conference in Beirut.

“What is at stake is our inability to keep more than 100 children in school, provide primary health care for more than 200 million people, or provide a safety net for the poorest of the poor, or even provide humanitarian assistance,” the statement said.

The UNRWA Commissioner General recalled that three out of four people in the Gaza Strip depend on humanitarian aid to feed themselves and warned that, as with other projects, “at present, the food supply is also at risk if it does not receive additional funding by September.”

The agency needs about $300 million (€275 million) to keep its operations going until the end of the year.

According to Lazzarini, $200 million (€183 million) is needed for educational activities and other services, $70 million (€64 million) for food aid in Gaza, and $30 million (€27.5 million) for distributing money to refugees. . in neighboring countries.

Lazzarini acknowledged that the current “funding crisis” began over a decade ago and criticized the fact that donors are no longer as “predictable and reliable as they used to be”.

In a World Refugee Day report, the agency says that Palestinian refugees make up nearly a fifth of the world’s total number of refugees and the population group that stays that way the longest.

“We cannot allow these six million people to be forgotten. It is time for the international community to take action to change this situation,” Raquel Marti, the executive director of the same agency in Spain, said in turn.

After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, which led to the establishment of the State of Israel, over 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes during the so-called “Nakba” (“catastrophe” in Arabic), one of the longest crises in the world.

Currently, about six million Palestinians live in 58 refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

“The lack of a solution over the years has only worsened the conditions of the refugees,” laments UNRWA, which for many refugees is the only source of livelihood.

“The crisis we are facing is serious. Sooner or later, our ability to provide services will dry up. We are in what I would call the unbearable status quo,” the agency’s commissioner general said.

According to Lazzarini, the organization must balance a commitment to renew its mandate every three years with “expectations” to serve “one of the most disadvantaged communities” in the region, linked to “needs that have increased and costs that have also increased.” increased at a time when resources stagnated.”

The official recalled that UNRWA will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2024, despite the fact that it was intended as a temporary organization, and called for a discussion of what its role should be “in the absence of a political solution” to the situation in Palestine.